I started out as a molecules kid. In high school and early college I loved chemistry, but I gradually shifted toward physics, which seemed cleaner - odorless, in fact.

During an intense period of lab work, the outside world vanishes and the obsession is total. Sleep is when you can curl up on the accelerator floor for an hour.

The real goal of physics is to come up with an equation that could explain the universe but still be small enough to fit on a T-shirt

Neutrinos ... win the minimalist contest: zero charge, zero radius, and very possibly zero mass.

Where do we stand today compared to Greece circa 400 B.C.? Today's experiment-driven 'standard model' is not all that dissimilar to Democritus's speculative [sic] atomic theory.

I started out as a molecules kid. In high school and early college I loved chemistry, but I gradually shifted toward physics, which seemed cleaner - odorless, in fact.

The British philosopher Bertrand Russell said that philosophy went downhill after Democritus and did not recover until the Renaissance.